Your Online Store Is A Lot Like Going To The Gym

Ecommerce is still a hot topic and more new online stores are going live than ever before, but as we emerge from lockdown you might be thinking, is that the end of the gold rush, or if you've already launched one, was it a complete waste of time and money?

But just like becoming fitter, your online store is a lot like going to the gym?

If you wanted to start getting fit, You wouldn't go to your first gym session and try to power lift you're own body weight, would you?

The best advice is to build your fitness gradually and over time you'll become fitter, leaner and your body shape would change.

It takes commitment, dedication, and determination but over time, you'd feel better and your overall fitness, strength, and health would improve.

This is the same with any website you want to rank in Google, but with e-commerce sites, you need to look at it a bit differently, extra consideration is needed when you're ranking your online store.

Naturally, with organic traffic, the benefits are easy to see with "free" traffic been the biggest. However, it's not exactly free is it, you'll either have to pay for someone to optimise your site or if you are attempting it yourself, it's going to be paying with your time, which as a business owner, is expensive.

But once you get traction, and your eCommerce site is acquiring the organic traffic and sales you need, it then becomes a matter of maintenance and upkeep, just like with your fitness.

Let it go and stop going to the gym, however, and it'll soon be lost.

The problem with search engines and Ecommerce

As you may be aware, ranking through the search engines does take some time, but with eCommerce stores, the problem is compounded because so many online stores share similar products from the same manufacturers.

When this happens the same content is been used over and over by all of your competitors, therefore Google will ignore your site and everyone else's because it's not unique and providing little if any value, and that is why so many store owners opt for paid ads.

It's logical to think that if you can't get free organic traffic the easy option is to get sales through buying your traffic.

The problem here is that if you still have the same content as everyone else selling that product, there is no other differentiation other than price and therefore only one outcome, shoppers are going to look for the cheapest.

Revenue is Vanity, Profits is Sanity

You may very well get more sales, but it does nothing for your profitability... if you're product is the same as other products on the market, someone is always prepared to sell it cheaper, and if you're paying for traffic aswell... it makes margins wafer-thin and virtually impossible to make a profit.

So how can you make organic traffic more profitable than paid traffic?

Yes, it probably will take longer to get the traffic, but it still represents I believe a better return on investment.

The key is to have unique content different from all others who share similar products. You might be thinking that's madness given the thousands of products you have in your store, so how do you expect to do that?

I didn't say it was going to be easy!

The answer is to focus on a particular category, a category that works best for your brand and one you might be able to profit most from.

Look at the market you serve and explore those sub-topics that you could specialise in or you know you are strongest and then identify the products you want to sell in that specific category.

It then becomes a matter of chunking those products into buckets where you can then manage depending on your resources.

Research other similar products, rewrite product titles and descriptions to say things differently, maybe even take different photos, create videos for those products, and provide more value for your customers.

Ultimately, that is what google is looking for, it wants you to add value to the searcher, so think about how can you do that?

By going deeper and more relevant to a subcategory means that shoppers won't be looking for the cheapest price, they will find your store for the value and quality of information you provide.

By making the content unique, optimising that content to provide something which is of added benefit, you will get more profitable sales, they may be fewer than through Paid traffic, but you're more likely to make more profit.

Take this strategy to its logical next step, once you have the rankings for your chosen category, and it becomes a matter of maintenance to keep those sales going, you can then move to the next category and do the same. until you dominate your industry.

Get an expert opinion

If you're looking for a quick and easy way to get your website ranked at the top of Google, this is not it.

The truth is that there's no silver bullet. There are many ways to optimise your site, but different strategies work better in different industries.

We have developed an easy-to-use scorecard so you can quickly identify what's working and what isn't in your marketing efforts. By answering 20 quick-fire questions you'll have your personalised report with recommendations in a matter of minutes, and it's free.

Take the scorecard now!